Archive: Black UM Leaders Urge UM Growth

Teams from 50 inner-city, metropolitan, small-town and rural churches, each representing an annual conference, met in August in Atlanta for the first national United Methodist Black Church Growth Consultation. The consultation was organized by Black Methodists for Church Renewal, an unofficial caucus of black lay and clergy leaders. Workshops, plenary sessions and worship services centered on the conference theme, “Black Pentecost: Saving Souls and Making Disciples.”

The consultation was inspired by the 1984 General Conference goal to double the denomination’s membership by 1992. Black churches, long touted as bastions of growth and vitality, discovered that sagging membership and lethargic programs were a problem for them as well as white churches. Church leaders set out to identify problem areas and help churches reverse the decline.

“We find ourselves losing black membership at the highest rate of any denomination—more than 140,000 since the dissolution of the [racially segregated] Central Jurisdiction in 1968,” said Bishop Forrest C. Stith, Syracuse, N.Y., in his keynote message. He said the historic role of the black church as an anchor that sustained its community has diminished.

Bishop Roy Nichols, Oakland, Calif., said growing numbers of non-church members are complaining that most churches seem more concerned about organizational matters and money than about social and spiritual needs.

“Jesus offered new approaches and various facets of the same messianic message to different people depending on who they were—whether a prostitute, a rabbi or a thief—and what their particular needs were,” said the bishop. The retired episcopal leader has researched trends and characteristics of growing churches for a book to be published next spring. “Churches now exist in a highly competitive environment,” he explained. “We have to be more aggressive, more visionary and more sensitive to people’s real needs if we’re going to invite them to come share the gospel.”

He urged the black leaders to explore new ministries for latch-key children and single-parent families, more prayer and nurturing groups, more training of lay people and more educational programs on topics such as personal financial management, parenting and marriage enrichment.

Workshop leaders emphasized the importance of spirited and innovative worship and music, encouraging participants to use and promote Songs of Zion, a hymnal in the black tradition, and the new United Methodist Hymnal, due out in. November 1989, which will contain music and worship resources from black and other ethnic traditions as well as standard church fare.

Participants like Preston Weaver, lay leader of St. Paul UMC, Dallas, called the consultation “a godsend.” His 115-yearold, 600-member church is a mostly middle-class congregation, but he hopes the church will expand its outreach program with tutorial and self-improvement classes for the large number of high school drop-outs in a nearby, low-income housing project.

Consultation planners will report their evaluations and other research data to the fall meeting of the Council of Bishops, according to Deborah Bass, consultant and coordinator for the event. They also will track the progress of many of the participating churches for two years and consult with the bishops and annual conferences who sent representatives.

Support for the consultation came from the United Methodist Council of Bishops, the General Council on Finance and Administration and the General Boards of Discipleship and Global Ministries.

United Methodist News Service